Thursday, January 17, 2013

Yes, I Find 'Rebranding Africa' Suspicious.

A couple of months ago, I was offered an opportunity to write a longish piece for the 'African Strategies for Transformation' issue of the Society for International Development journal Development. The topic was irresistible as presented to me: conflict between tradition and change, whichever way I wanted to swing that cat around the room, as long as I also touched on this rebranding of Africa business. The challenge was how to tackle these well-worn topics without regurgitating what has already been said, and said better.

In the end, I wrote what amounts to a long blog post. The political is personal, and I think the occasional narrative doesn't hurt, especially when the topics at hand are serious. There's some stuff about youth in there, and a segment linking King Mswati III with feminism and early journalistic impulses. I did an interview with Ahmed Salim for the East Africa Today podcast that's being featured on the SID website this week*.